After years of having graded essays of kids all the way from seventh grade through their senior year, I encountered my share of words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuke-you-lerr\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when the students meant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuclear.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Why is it so difficult? Why does this combination of nasals, plosives, vowels and glides make even scientists struggle \u00e2\u20ac\u201d sometimes not even realizing it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grating on others?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to recall the criticism purists directed to George W. Bush, for whom that word may have been the most important in his mini-arsenal of verbiage.<\/p>\n
Is the ex-President\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inclined cable railway known as a funicular?<\/p>\n
In fairness to Bush, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not forget that other occupants of that office also struggled, possibly without realizing it. Jimmy Carter gave the word an entirely different sound: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nucrear.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton enjoyed their share of linguistic creativity, according to Patricia T. O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Conner, author of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Origins of the Specious.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
My take on the cringe-inducing pronunciations is simply that if we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear or read the new terms, we form their sounds through analogy. So if words look like other words, their pronunciation has to be the same, or so we think. There are just too many words like vehicular, particular, muscular and spectacular that lull us into rhyming \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuclear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with the others.<\/p>\n
What word in English sounds even a bit like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nu-clee-er\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? But yet, must the language cops of the world accept \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and even endorse \u00e2\u20ac\u201d this butchery simply because someone might have trouble rendering certain words? When we learned new words in school, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we need to learn to spell them, use diacritical marking to help us pronounce them, and finally \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pronounce the word three times, and then, and then, it will be yours forever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
That \u00e2\u20ac\u0153yours forever\u00e2\u20ac\u009d enticement came from my years at Immaculate Conception School. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you mean, Sister Mary Bu\u00c3\u00b1elo, that if I say something three times, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mine?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I would ask. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, Arthur.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So, immediately I uttered: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gina Lollobrigida, Gina Lollobrigida, Gina Lollobrigida.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, but I continue to hold out hope, except with a new candidate, Katherine Zeta Jones, times three.<\/p>\n
Dick Cavett once reported that Bush said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have an \u00e2\u20ac\u02dceckalectic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reading list,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d implying his library is vast and varied. Cavett added, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Until he was nice enough to repeat it, I was sure he had said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153epileptic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which at least would have been a word. I prefer the three-syllable version \u00e2\u20ac\u02dceclectic,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but then Bush is The Decider.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Finally, Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense, how living in Taos, reportedly believed that hidden weapons are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153found in a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccash-ay.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well, we all ought to save our cache and sashay right over there to find them.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
What was she thinking?<\/p>\n
School administrators and teachers in New Mexico are justifiably wary of the decision by Gov. Susana Martinez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s education secretary to spend $152,000 to hire out-of-state consultants. The rationale used by Education Secretary-designate Hanna Skandera is to track student achievement and handle public relations.<\/p>\n
But what appears most upsetting in the Land of Enchantment is that at least six of the consultants have careers tied to either former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, or his brother, George W. Bush.<\/p>\n
Why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t people get it straight? You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t increase the weight of your herd by subjecting it to repeated weighing. And you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect to improve student performance by constantly testing them. Remember, these scholastic forms of the Procrustean Bed are likely to drive some teachers to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153teach to the test.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Remember, Procrustes was the mythological innkeeper who stretched or amputated visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 limbs to ensure they fit exactly into his beds.<\/p>\n
The federal No Child Left Behind program, according to many state educational leaders, is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153failed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153botched.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope additional years of failure don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t await our state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s schools.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Rene Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher, is credited with having said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cogito, ergo sum,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which translates to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think, therefore I am.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, he appeared in an early episode of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jeopardy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and during a tense round, he shouted, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
He disappeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After years of having graded essays of kids all the way from seventh grade through their senior year, I encountered my share of words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuke-you-lerr\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when the students meant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nuclear.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Why is it so difficult? Why does this combination of nasals, plosives, vowels and glides make even scientists struggle \u00e2\u20ac\u201d sometimes not even realizing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}